Systems, methods and articles to facilitate buying and selling of advertising inventory

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for providing an advertisement marketplace where buyers and sellers can trade mediacast advertisement inventory programmatically at local, national, and/or worldwide levels. The marketplace system may include a seller-controlled marketplace system which connects sellers with buyers and offers revenue management tools for optimizing yields across direct and programmatic channels. The advertisement inventory is bought and sold as canonical inventory units which group similar but discrete advertisement slots together. The marketplace system may include a seller side platform (SSP) for sellers and an advertiser-facing interface or console for demand side platform (DSP) entities. Through the SSP, sellers can access demand and make advertisement inventory available and accept or reject a bid based on marketplace demand without revealing information relating to pricing or available inventory to buyers.

BACKGROUND

Field

This disclosure generally relates to computer-implemented systems and methods which facilitate the buying and selling of advertising inventory.

Description of the Related Art

Content providers such as radio stations and networks, television stations and networks, and Webcasters provide programming including content which is the subject of programming. Content providers' delivery of content is often via broadcasts or Webcasts (collectively, “mediacasts”). While content providers may employ repeaters and the like, broadcasts are typically limited in range to a geographic region.

Programming often includes advertisements interspersed with the subject matter of the programming. The advertisements may occur in segments or slots sometimes referred to as “ad breaks.” Content providers typically sell advertising time to generate revenue to fund operation, as well as generate profits, where the content provider is a commercial entity rather than a nonprofit entity. Given that most broadcasts are local in nature or extent, content providers often carry advertisements and other material which is of a somewhat local or parochial interest. For example, a local chain may place advertisements with a local broadcaster since the audience targeted by the local chain is also often local and local advertising tends to be less expensive than regional or national advertising.

New approaches that automate the various activities related to buying, selling and placement of new materials, for instance, advertisements, in mediacasts are desirable.

BRIEF SUMMARY

A system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts may be summarized as including: at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium that stores an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities represented in a canonical form that specifies at least a respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity during a mediacast day of the mediacast content provider; and at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium and which implements an advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers, and that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.

For at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may specify the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity by at least two of: i) a start time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, ii) an end time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, and iii) a duration of the respective advertisement placement opportunity. For at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may further specify a day of the week of the advertising placement opportunity. For at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may further specify at least one of a network, a network affiliate, or a channel of the advertising placement opportunity. For at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may represent the advertising placement opportunity without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity. The at least one processor may implement the advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity. The at least one processor may implement the advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without revealing a total number of slots available in the respective advertising placement opportunity to any of the advertisers. For at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may represent the advertising placement opportunity without specification of either a specific start time or a specific end time for the advertising placement opportunity. The advertiser-facing interface may receive a plurality of requests for an advertisement placement opportunity from a corresponding plurality of advertisers, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price, wherein the advertiser-facing user interface receives the plurality of requests without exposing the bid price of each advertiser to any other of the plurality of advertisers. The advertiser-facing interface may further provide notification of an acceptance of a request for advertisement placement opportunities to a respective first one of the advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers. The at least one processor may implement an advertiser-facing interface that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers. The at least one processor may implement the advertiser-facing interface which receives a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receives an advertiser-specified budget which spans the received plurality of requests, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price and the sum of the bid prices of the plurality of requests exceeds the advertiser-specified budget, the at least one processor prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified budget for the plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests. The received plurality of requests may include requests from an advertiser for all advertisement placement opportunities which meet one or more criteria specified by the advertiser. The advertiser-specified budget may span at least two media types including television, radio, or digital placement of media. The at least one processor may implement the advertiser-facing interface which receives a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receives an advertiser-specified maximum concentration which spans the received plurality of requests, the at least one processor prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified maximum concentration for the received plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests. The maximum concentration may include a maximum number of acceptances with respect to at least one of a market, an affiliate, a period of time, a media outlet, a geographical area, or a group of consumers. The at least one processor may implement a daily close of all requests for advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to a given mediacast day. The at least one processor may update the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities from time-to-time to reflect advertisement placement opportunities no longer available and new advertisement placement opportunities that are available. The specified period of time for at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities may be thirty minutes. Each of the advertisement placement opportunities may include a plurality of slots in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity, at least some of the plurality of slots may have a duration shorter than the specified period of time of the respective advertising placement opportunity. The advertiser-facing interface may accept requests for respective advertisement placement opportunities within 15 minutes of the respective publishing time of the advertisement placement opportunities. The advertiser-facing interface may accept requests for respective advertisement placement opportunities within 1 minute of the respective publishing time of the advertisement placement opportunities.

A method to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts may be summarized as including: storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium, an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities represented in a canonical form that specifies at least a respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity during a mediacast day of the mediacast content provider; providing, by at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium, access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.

Storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities and, for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may specify the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity by at least two of: i) a start time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, ii) an end time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, and iii) a duration of the respective advertisement placement opportunity. Storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities and, for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may further specify a day of the week of the advertising placement opportunity. Storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities wherein, for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form further specifies at least one of a network, a network affiliate, or a channel of the advertising placement opportunity. Storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities and, for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may represent the advertising placement opportunity without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity. Providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity. Providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without revealing a total number of slots available in the respective advertising placement opportunity to any of the advertisers. Storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities and, for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form may represent the advertising placement opportunity without specification of either a specific start time or a specific end time for the advertising placement opportunity. Receiving requests for advertisement placement opportunities may include receiving a plurality of requests for an advertisement placement opportunity from a corresponding plurality of advertisers, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price, wherein the advertiser-facing user interface receives the plurality of requests without exposing the bid price of each advertiser to any other of the plurality of advertisers. The method may further include: providing, by the at least one processor, notification of an acceptance of a request for advertisement placement opportunities to a respective first one of the advertiser without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers. The method may further include: providing, by the at least one processor, a mediacast content provider facing user interface that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers. Providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities via the advertiser-facing interface may include receiving a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receiving an advertiser-specified budget which spans the received plurality of requests, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price and the sum of the bid prices of the plurality of requests exceeds the advertiser-specified budget, and preventing acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified budget for the plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests. Receiving a plurality of requests from an advertiser may include receiving a plurality of requests which comprises requests from an advertiser for all advertisement placement opportunities which meet one or more criteria specified by the advertiser. Receiving an advertiser-specified budget may include receiving an advertiser-specified budget which spans at least two media types including television, radio, or digital placement of media. Providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities via the advertiser-facing interface may include receiving a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receiving an advertiser-specified maximum concentration which spans the received plurality of requests, and preventing acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified maximum concentration for the received plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests. Providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities via the advertiser-facing interface may include receiving a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receiving an advertiser-specified maximum concentration which spans the received plurality of requests, and the maximum concentration may include a maximum number of acceptances with respect to at least one of a market, an affiliate, a period of time, a media outlet, a geographical area, or a group of consumers. Providing access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities via the advertiser-facing interface may include implementing a daily close of all requests for advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to a given mediacast day. The method may further include: updating, by the at least one processor, the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities from time-to-time to reflect advertisement placement opportunities no longer available and new advertisement placement opportunities that are available. Receiving requests for advertisement placement opportunities may include receiving requests which each include a plurality of slots in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity, at least some of the plurality of slots have a duration shorter than the specified period of time of the respective advertising placement opportunity. Storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities may include storing an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities and, for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the specified period of time for at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities may be thirty minutes.

A system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts may be summarized as including: at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium that stores an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, for each of the mediacast content providers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities specifies one of a plurality of periods of time which in aggregate span an entire mediacast period of time of the mediacast content provider, and each of the advertisement placement opportunities includes at least one slot in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity; and at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium and which implements an advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers, and that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.

The mediacast period of time may include at least one of a mediacast day or a mediacast week.

A method to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts may be summarized as including: storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium, an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts via mediacast channels to a plurality of media consumers, for each mediacast channel of each of the mediacast content providers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities specifies one of a plurality of periods of time which in aggregate span an entire mediacast period of time of the mediacast channel, and each of the advertisement placement opportunities includes a at least one slot in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity; providing, by at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium, access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.

A method to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts transmitted by a plurality of mediacast content providers through respective mediacast channels may be summarized as including: for each mediacast channel of each mediacast content provider, partitioning, by at least one processor, a mediacast period of time into a number of advertisement inventory units, each of the number of advertisement inventory units comprising a respective inventory unit period of time of the mediacast period of time and comprising at least one advertisement slot; storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the advertisement inventory units for each of the mediacast channels of the plurality of mediacast content providers; providing, by the at least one processor, access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers, each request comprising a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units.

A method to automate advertisement placement in printed media published by a plurality of printed media content providers through respective printed media channels may be summarized as including: for each printed media channel of each printed media content provider, partitioning, by at least one processor, the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units, each of the number of advertisement inventory units comprising a respective portion of the printed media channel and comprising at least one advertisement slot; storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the advertisement inventory units for each of the printed media channels of the plurality of printed media content providers; providing, by the at least one processor, access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers, each request comprising a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units.

Partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units may include partitioning at least one of a newspaper, book, magazine or sign into a number of advertisement inventory units. Partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units may include partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units which each correspond to a particular section of the printed media channel. Partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units may include partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units based at least in part on publication date of the printed media channel.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings, identical reference numbers identify similar elements or acts. The sizes and relative positions of elements in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. For example, the shapes of various elements and angles are not necessarily drawn to scale, and some of these elements may be arbitrarily enlarged and positioned to improve drawing legibility. Further, the particular shapes of the elements as drawn, are not necessarily intended to convey any information regarding the actual shape of the particular elements, and may have been solely selected for ease of recognition in the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a networked environment, including an advertisement marketplace computer system communicatively coupled between sellers, such as terrestrial radio or television providers or Webcasters, and buyers, such as advertisers who have advertisements to place or who otherwise control placement of advertisements, according to one illustrated implementation.

FIG. 2 is a workflow diagram of portions of the networked environment of FIG. 1, showing an example workflow for a transaction utilizing the advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of various components of an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation.

FIG. 4 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate placement of advertisements in linear mediacasts, according to one illustrated implementation.

FIG. 5 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation, which may be employed in performing the method of FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation, which may be employed in performing the method of FIG. 4.

FIG. 7 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation, which may be employed in performing the method of FIG. 4.

FIG. 8 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation, which may be employed in performing the method of FIG. 4.

FIG. 9 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation, which may be employed in performing the method of FIG. 4.

FIG. 10 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate placement of advertisements in linear mediacasts, according to one illustrated implementation.

FIG. 11 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate placement of advertisements in linear mediacasts, according to one illustrated implementation.

FIG. 12 shows a method of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate placement of advertisements in printed media channels, according to one illustrated implementation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, certain specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of various disclosed implementations. However, one skilled in the relevant art will recognize that implementations may be practiced without one or more of these specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, etc. In other instances, well-known structures associated with computer systems, server computers, and/or communications networks have not been shown or described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring descriptions of the implementations.

Unless the context requires otherwise, throughout the specification and claims that follow, the word “comprising” is synonymous with “including,” and is inclusive or open-ended (i.e., does not exclude additional, unrecited elements or method acts).

Reference throughout this specification to “one implementation” or “an implementation” means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the implementation is included in at least one implementation. Thus, the appearances of the phrases “in one implementation” or “in an implementation” in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same implementation. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more implementations.

As used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural referents unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. It should also be noted that the term “or” is generally employed in its sense including “and/or” unless the content clearly dictates otherwise.

The headings and Abstract of the Disclosure provided herein are for convenience only and do not interpret the scope or meaning of the implementations.

Implementations of the present disclosure are directed to computer-implemented systems and methods for providing an autonomous advertisement marketplace or exchange system where buyers and sellers can trade mediacast (e.g., broadcast, Webcast) advertisement inventory programmatically at local, national, and/or worldwide levels. The types of media traded via the marketplace may simultaneously include numerous types of media, including TV, cable, satellite, radio, outdoor, print, etc. Such programmatic advertising implements data-driven automation of audience-based advertising operations which inverts the industry standard in which marketers rely on show ratings to determine desirable audiences for the marketers' advertisements. Instead, with programmatic, marketers may use audience data to pipe advertising to optimal places. For example, marketers may use programmatic technology to reach a more specific set of consumers regardless of on which programs the advertisements appear.

The marketplace systems disclosed herein seamlessly blend traditional linear media (e.g., TV, cable, satellite, radio, outdoor, print) sales practices with data-driven digital advertisement buying methods. In some implementations, the marketplace systems are fully automated seller-controlled marketplace systems which connect local mediacasters (e.g., broadcasters, Webcasters, printed content providers) with new and existing demand sources and offer revenue management tools for optimizing yields across direct and programmatic channels. Transactions may be demand-led, which allows sellers to view the demand across the sellers' entire landscape of potentially available advertisement inventory. Further, in some implementations, the sellers may accept or reject bid responses from buyers without revealing price floors or available advertisement opportunities to any of the buyers.

In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace systems disclosed herein interface with demand side platforms that make automated media advertisement purchases. Participating sellers enjoy seamless transaction workflow for getting advertisements from proposal, to publishing, and to billing that delivers a significant reduction in time spent on reconciliation and “make-goods” and streamlines processes for creative management and revenue management across direct and programmatic sales channels.

In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace systems include powerful yield management tools that give participating sellers the power to retain full control of pricing floors and inventory allocation across direct and programmatic sales channels. The marketplace systems may also honor all placement rules for delivery separation and automatic management of potential channel conflict across advertisements sold directly and through the marketplace system.

The marketplace systems may include a seller side platform (SSP) or console for sellers (e.g., broadcasters, Webcasters, printed content providers) and an advertiser-facing interface or console for demand side platform (DSP) entities to interface with the marketplace systems. Through the SSP, sellers can access demand and make advertisement inventory available and accept or reject bid responses based on marketplace demand.

The advertiser-facing interface facilitates creative placement and reviewing for the buy side, and may have transcoding and approval tools for the sell side. For example, in some implementations, once an advertisement transaction is approved, the advertiser-facing interface sends the advertisement directly to a broadcaster's traffic system. In some implementations, the marketplace system is a sell-side powered marketplace, which allows sellers to set price floors and to retain the right to accept or reject any offer which comes through the marketplace system.

In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace systems disclosed herein automate aspects of billing, reconciliation, and creative execution. In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace systems may be integrated with advertisement management software and sales and traffic management systems.

In one or more implementations disclosed herein, the marketplace systems do not require sellers to offer particular day parts or times when advertisement inventory is available. That is, “carve-outs” are not required. Rather, buyers can extend offers for the entire roster or landscape for a particular channel for a particular period of time (e.g., mediacast day). Thus, sellers may peruse this demand and decide which offers to accept or not to accept.

As discussed further below, in some implementations, the advertisement inventory is bought and sold as canonical inventory units which group similar but discrete advertisement slots together. For example, for linear media an inventory unit may be defined as a specific channel, day and time period (e.g., 30 minutes). When the marketplace opens for a given mediacast day, the marketplace may issue requests for bids (RFBs) for all inventory units for that mediacast day. Buyers may price the inventory units and provide a bid for any of the inventory units. At a daily market close, the advertisement marketplace may notify the buyers of the win/loss outcomes. In some implementations, the demand (e.g., bid responses) may be expressed for future slots but sellers may accept near publishing time (e.g., 10 seconds before airtime, 10 minutes before airtime).

FIG. 1 shows a networked environment 100 according to one illustrated implementation in which various apparatus, methods and articles described herein may operate. The environment 100 includes an advertisement marketplace or exchange system 102, an advertiser-facing interface (AFI) 103, a number of sellers or content providers 104A-104N (collectively 104), traffic management systems 106A-106N (collectively 106), a supply side platform (SSP) 108, a number of demand side platforms (DSPs) 110A-110N (collectively 110), and a number of buyers 112A-112N (collectively 112), all communicatively coupled by one or more networks or other communications channels.

The sellers 104 may take a variety of forms, for example, radio stations or broadcasters, television stations or broadcasters, other terrestrial or satellite broadcasters or multicasters (not shown), Webcasters, printed content (e.g., print media) providers, outdoor content (e.g., billboards) providers, etc. The sellers 104 may, or may not, own the content that they provide. The sellers 104 utilize the SSP 108 to access the advertisement marketplace system 102 and may use the traffic management systems 106A-106N for traffic management. On the buy side, the buyers 112 (e.g., advertisers, agencies) may interface with the marketplace system 102 via the AFI 103 through the buyers' respective DSPs 110.

FIG. 2 shows an example workflow 200 for implementing the marketplace system 102 in the environment 100 of FIG. 1 between a buyer 112, a buyer's DSP 110, the marketplace system 102, and a seller 104 interfacing with the marketplace system 102 through the SSP 108 and the traffic management system 106. Generally, the AFI 103 exposes future advertisement inventory (avails) to DSPs which can bid on the entire supply landscape and receive daily win/loss notifications for the inventory (e.g., for the following week).

At 202, the buyer 112 may enter advertising campaign constraints through the DSP 110. Such campaign constraints may include budget, target audience, channels, day parts, etc. The campaign constraints may be cross-media types (e.g., TV, cable, radio, satellite, outdoor, print). At 204, the buyer 112 may send an advertiser and/or agency name mapping to the advertisement marketplace 102 via the DSP 110 based on agencies and advertisers already existing in the advertisement marketplace so that the buyer is associated with an advertiser and/or agency name in the marketplace. At 206, a creative agency associated with the buyer 112 may upload a creative (e.g., advertisement content) which will be used in campaigns through the DSP 110. The DSP 110 may provision the creative to the advertisement marketplace 102, which may download, ingest and validate the creative, and may then send an identifier (e.g., “creative ID”) back to the DSP for use in a subsequent bid response.

At 208, the advertisement marketplace 102 may send a request for bids (RFBs) to the DSP 110 for every canonical inventor unit. As noted above, in some implementations, a canonical inventory unit is defined as a time period in a mediacast day for a particular channel and/or market (e.g., Channel X, Market Y, Nov. 3, 2015, 5:30-6:00 am). The advertisement marketplace system 102 may send RFBs for all canonical inventory units in the marketplace for a particular period of time (e.g., day, week). In some implementations, each inventory unit in the advertisement marketplace system has a unique channel, market, and time period combination. In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace system operates one week ahead of a publication date (e.g., airdate), but other future time windows may also be used.

At 210, the DSP 110 responds to the RFBs provided by the advertisement marketplace system 102 with demand for one or more of the inventory units. The DSP 110 may apply targeting criteria prior to issuing bids. In some implementations, the DSP 110 does not need to notify the advertisement marketplace system 102 of the targeting data source or attributes used to determine the bids or inventory unit selection.

At 212, the advertisement marketplace system 102 validates received bids and begins matching bids with inventory supply. At 214, the SSP 108 pulls creative previews and alerts the seller 104 to possible bids to approve. The seller may approve the creatives and bids and may then send the approvals to the advertisement marketplace system 102 for consideration.

At 216, the advertisement marketplace system 102 closes the marketplace for the day. The winning spots are sent to the traffic management system 106 for publishing (e.g., airing, printing). At 218, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may send a “win” beacon to the DSP 110, which allows the buyer 112 to decrement the buyer's budget through the DSP as needed.

At 220, the seller 104 may process orders through the traffic management system 106. At 222, the seller 104 may reconcile actual air times with the advertisement marketplace system 102 through the traffic management system 106.

At 224, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may send impression and completion event beacons to the buyer 112 through the DSP 110. Such beacons may be sent after the spot has aired (e.g., up to 30 days later).

In some implementations, before a DSP can win bids, creative should be sent to the advertisement marketplace system 102 to be stored in a nontransitory processor-readable storage medium accessible thereby. As noted above, when a creative is submitted by a DSP to the advertisement marketplace system 102 through the AFI 103, an identifier is sent back to the DSP. Then, advertisement marketplace system 102 ingests the creative and validates that the creative assets meets the technical requirements necessary for the creative to be trafficked and aired successfully. In some implementations, creatives are pre-registered. In such cases, bid responses from DSPs designate a pre-registered creative identifier.

As noted above, for linear media a canonical inventory unit may be defined a specific channel, market, day, and time period (e.g., half hour, one hour). Each canonical inventory unit may include a plurality (e.g., 12-18) of discrete advertisement slots which have a duration that is shorter than the specified time period for the inventory unit. For example, the durations for the advertisement slots may be 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, etc., while the specified time period for the canonical inventory unit may be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours, etc. The precise time or position of these slots in the corresponding specified time period may or may not be defined at the time of a bid or known by the bidder. Even the seller may not know the precise time or the precise order of the slots prior to publication (e.g., broadcast).

When the marketplace opens for a particular mediacast day, RFBs are issued for all canonical inventory units for the mediacast day. Buyers are able to price the inventory units individually to provide spot bids. At the daily close of the marketplace, the advertisement marketplace system 102 notifies buyers 112 through respective DSPs 110 of the win/loss outcomes.

In cases of print media, a canonical inventory unit may be defined in a way such that similar but discrete advertisement slots are grouped together. For instance, for a daily newspaper, a canonical inventory unit may be defined by a section of the newspaper and by date (e.g., Sports section, May 3; Business section, May 6). In such instances, a seller may issue RFBs for all canonical inventory units in a future week of the newspaper.

The advertisement marketplace system 102 may operate on a mediacast day schedule, which may vary between sellers (e.g., mediacast stations). Most commonly, mediacast day is from 5:00 AM to 4:59 XM (the next calendar day). The time period from 12:00 AM to 4:59 AM is represented as 12:00 AM to 4:59 XM, wherein the XM indicates that the time period is actually part of the next calendar day.

In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace system 102 issues a unique RFB to the DSP 110 for every canonical inventory unit in the landscape (e.g., channels, markets) of the advertisement marketplace system for a particular future time period (e.g., one upcoming mediacast day). Once the RFBs are sent to the DSP 110, the DSP may have an opportunity each day to submit a bid for each inventory unit. The availability of inventory may not be revealed to the buyers in these bid requests. In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may perform a full landscape sweep on day X for inventory units containing spots which will air on the mediacast day one week later. For example, on a given Monday, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may issue RFBs for all inventory units covering the mediacast day for the next Monday. This window may be more or less than one week in other implementations.

In some implementations, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may allow DSPs to express demand (i.e., bids) for days beyond a single day one week ahead of the current day. For example, a DSP may wish to see RFBs on a rolling mediacast week basis. In such cases, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may issue RFBs on a given Monday for all canonical inventory units for the next Monday through the next Sunday. Then, on Tuesday of the same week, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may issue RFBs for all canonical inventory units for the next Tuesday through the next Monday, and so on. This configuration allows the DSP 110 to have more chances to bid on inventory units throughout the week, which can help fine tune bidding strategies and may facilitate campaign pacing.

Once all of the daily bids are collected, the advertisement marketplace system 102 matches offers with inventory supply and generates orders that are integrated with the traffic management system 106. At this point, the bid status for each bid may be classified as Win, Loss, or Hold. The Win bid status indicates the offer has been accepted by seller for a specific canonical inventory unit. The Loss bid status indicates the offer was declined by seller, and may specify one or more loss reason codes. The Hold bid status indicates the offer has been accepted by the seller as part of a rotator. In some implementations, all bids in a rotator are set to the lowest bid rate in a particular grouping.

Given the nature of the advertisement marketplace system 102 operations, budget management may more complex than in a digital advertisement ecosystem. To facilitate budget management and to assist DSPs with expressing enough demand to meet their campaign objectives given the challenges introduced by the bid feedback latency, the advertisement marketplace system 102 may utilize “bid group objects.” Each bid response can include a bid group object. A bid group object is a budget cap and/or a maximum spot wins constraint that can be assigned across multiple bids (and multiple media types) to avoid over-spending/over-winning during the feedback window. These budget caps and/or maximum spot wins may operate in a “first triggered” model, meaning that no more bids will be permitted to win after the budget cap or maximum spots cap are hit.

For example, the DSP 110 may group all bids for one campaign, for one day, into a bid group with a budget cap for the day. Then, the DSP 110 may issue bids for orders of magnitude more inventory and/or cost (e.g., $1,000,000) than the budget (e.g., $10,000) will support. The budget cap protects the buyer from winning all of the bids, which would exceed the budget. Thus, a buyer may issue bids as though the buyer has an “infinite budget” without the risk of exceeding the buyer's actual budget. Using such functionality, buyers can place bids in parallel without having to iteratively place bids, wait and see which bids are accepted, and place additional bids to fulfill their budget for a campaign. Such functionality also avoids the need for buyers to model acceptance rates to determine how much over the budget the buyer can safely bid without exceeding the budget. Depending on the accuracy of such model of acceptance rates and how aggressive a buyer is placing bids, there is the potential for the buyer to exceed the budget if the actual acceptance rate is higher than expected or for less than the budget to be spent if the actual acceptance rate is lower than expected. Such issues are avoided by use of the bid groups discussed above.

As another example, the DSP 100 may group all bids for a particular channel into a bid group object and set a maximum spot cap which limits the number of spots which will be purchased for the channel. Such feature may allow for “smoothing” a campaign across multiple channels and/or times without overly concentrating the buyer's budget on a particular market, affiliate, period of time, media outlet, geographical area, group of consumers, etc. As an example, a maximum spot cap may be established which limits the frequency which an advertisement is provided to the same group of consumers. The group of consumers may be determined statistically (e.g., by station times, programming) so that a particular advertisement is not provided to the same group of consumers more than N times over a time period.

FIG. 3 shows a networked environment 300 comprising one or more advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 (only one illustrated) and one or more associated nontransitory computer- or processor-readable storage medium 304 (only one illustrated). The associated nontransitory computer- or processor-readable storage medium 304 is communicatively coupled to the advertisement marketplace computer system(s) 302 via one or more communications channels, for example, one or more parallel cables, serial cables, or wireless channels capable of high speed communications, for instance, via FireWire®, Universal Serial Bus® (USB) 2 or 3, Thunderbolt®, and/or Gigabit Ethernet®.

The networked environment 300 also includes one or more external processor-based computer systems 306 (only one illustrated). For example, the external processor-based systems 306 may be representative of a processor-based system associated with an SSP 108 or a DSP 110 of FIG. 1. The external processor-based systems 306 are communicatively coupled to the advertisement marketplace computer system(s) 302 by one or more communications channels, for example, one or more wide area networks (WANs) 310, for instance the Internet or Worldwide Web portion thereof.

The networked environment 300 may employ other computer systems and network equipment, for example, additional servers, proxy servers, firewalls, routers and/or bridges. The advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 will at times be referred to in the singular herein, but this is not intended to limit the implementations to a single device since in typical implementations there may be more than one advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 involved. Unless described otherwise, the construction and operation of the various blocks shown in FIG. 3 are of conventional design. As a result, such blocks need not be described in further detail herein, as they will be understood by those skilled in the relevant art.

The advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 may include one or more processing units 312 a, 312 b (collectively 312), a system memory 314 and a system bus 316 that couples various system components, including the system memory 314 to the processing units 312. The processing units 312 may be any logic processing unit, such as one or more central processing units (CPUs) 312 a, digital signal processors (DSPs) 312 b, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), etc. The system bus 316 can employ any known bus structures or architectures, including a memory bus with memory controller, a peripheral bus, and/or a local bus. The system memory 314 includes read-only memory (“ROM”) 318 and random access memory (“RAM”) 320. A basic input/output system (“BIOS”) 322, which can form part of the ROM 318, contains basic routines that help transfer information between elements within the advertisement marketplace computer system(s) 302, such as during start-up.

The advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 may include a hard disk drive 324 for reading from and writing to a hard disk 326, an optical disk drive 328 for reading from and writing to removable optical disks 332, and/or a magnetic disk drive 330 for reading from and writing to magnetic disks 334. The optical disk 332 can be a CD-ROM, while the magnetic disk 334 can be a magnetic floppy disk or diskette. The hard disk drive 324, optical disk drive 328 and magnetic disk drive 330 may communicate with the processing unit 312 via the system bus 316. The hard disk drive 324, optical disk drive 328 and magnetic disk drive 330 may include interfaces or controllers (not shown) coupled between such drives and the system bus 316, as is known by those skilled in the relevant art. The drives 324, 328 and 330, and their associated computer-readable media 326, 332, 334, provide nonvolatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the advertisement marketplace computer system 302. Although the depicted advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 is illustrated employing a hard disk 324, optical disk 328 and magnetic disk 330, those skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that other types of computer-readable media that can store data accessible by a computer may be employed, such as WORM drives, RAID drives, magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks (“DVD”), Bernoulli cartridges, RAMs, ROMs, smart cards, etc.

Program modules can be stored in the system memory 314, such as an operating system 336, one or more application programs 338, other programs or modules 340 and program data 342. The system memory 314 may also include communications programs, for example, a server 344 that causes the advertisement marketplace computer system 302 to serve electronic information or files via the Internet, intranets, extranets, telecommunications networks, or other networks as described below. The server 344 in the depicted implementation is markup language based, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML) or Wireless Markup Language (WML), and operates with markup languages that use syntactically delimited characters added to the data of a document to represent the structure of the document. A number of suitable servers may be commercially available such as those from Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and Apple Computer.

While shown in FIG. 3 as being stored in the system memory 314, the operating system 336, application programs 338, other programs/modules 340, program data 342 and server 344 can be stored on the hard disk 326 of the hard disk drive 324, the optical disk 332 of the optical disk drive 328 and/or the magnetic disk 334 of the magnetic disk drive 330.

An operator can enter commands and information into the advertisement marketplace computer system(s) 302 through input devices such as a touch screen or keyboard 346 and/or a pointing device such as a mouse 348, and/or via a graphical user interface. Other input devices can include a microphone, joystick, game pad, tablet, scanner, etc. These and other input devices are connected to one or more of the processing units 312 through an interface 350 such as a serial port interface that couples to the system bus 316, although other interfaces such as a parallel port, a game port or a wireless interface or a universal serial bus (“USB”) can be used. A monitor 352 or other display device is coupled to the system bus 316 via a video interface 354, such as a video adapter. The advertisement marketplace computer system(s) 302 can include other output devices, such as speakers, printers, etc.

The advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 can operate in a networked environment 300 using logical connections to one or more remote computers and/or devices. For example, the advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 can operate in a networked environment 300 using logical connections to one or more external processor-based systems 306. Communications may be via a wired and/or wireless network architecture, for instance, wired and wireless enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets, extranets, and/or the Internet. Other implementations may include other types of communications networks including telecommunications networks, cellular networks, paging networks, and other mobile networks. There may be any variety of computers, switching devices, routers, bridges, firewalls and other devices in the communications paths between the advertisement marketplace computer systems 302 and external processor-based systems 306.

FIG. 4 shows a method 400 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts (e.g., broadcasts, Webcasts). At 402, at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may store, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium thereof, an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts.

Each of the advertisement placement opportunities (“avails”) may be represented in a canonical form that specifies at least a respective period of time (e.g., 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour) of the advertisement placement opportunity during a mediacast day of the mediacast content provider. For example, each inventory unit may correspond to a specific 30 minute window of a mediacast day of the mediacast content provider. Each of the advertisement placement opportunities may include a plurality (e.g., 12-18) of slots in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity. In some implementations, at least some of the plurality of slots have a duration shorter than the specified period of time of the respective advertising placement opportunity.

In some implementations, the canonical form of at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory specifies the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity by at least two of: i) a start time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, ii) an end time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, and iii) a duration of the respective advertisement placement opportunity. In some implementations, the canonical form of at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory specifies a day of the week of the advertising placement opportunity. The canonical form of at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory may specify at least one of a network, a network affiliate, or a channel of the advertising placement opportunity. In some implementations, the canonical form represents the advertising placement opportunity without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for any slot in the respective advertising placement opportunity. In some implementations, the canonical form of at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory represents the advertising placement opportunity without specification of either a specific start time or a specific end time for any of the respective slots of the advertising placement opportunity.

In some instances, the canonical form of inventory units may vary based on media type. For instance, TV, satellite, cable and outdoor billboards may utilize a canonical form defined by time period (e.g., 30 minutes), while print media may utilize a canonical form defined by sections (e.g., table of contents, feature article, back cover) of a publication and/or defined by two dimensional areas (e.g., ½ page, 1 page) of a publication.

At 404, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface (AFI). As discussed above, DSPs may access the AFI to view inventory units across a media content provider's landscape for a particular period of time (e.g., a mediacast day). In some implementations, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for any slot in the respective advertising placement opportunity. In some implementations, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without revealing of a total number of slots available in the respective advertising placement opportunity to any of the advertisers.

At 406, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may receive, via the AFI, requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers. Each request may be a request for at least one undisclosed slot in one of the advertisement placement opportunities. For example, an advertisement placement opportunity may be for a specific channel, on a specific day, and during a specified 30 minute time window. A buyer may place a bid for the advertisement placement opportunity which purchases a slot (e.g., a 30 second slot) within the specified 30 minute time window.

The at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may receive the requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to mediacast content providers other than a respective mediacast content provider that provides the respective mediacast that includes the respective requested advertisement placement opportunity. In some instances, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide a mediacast content provider-facing user interface that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers.

FIG. 5 shows a method 500 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation. The method 500 may be employed in performing the method 400 (FIG. 4).

At 502, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace computer system provides notification of an acceptance of a request for advertisement placement opportunities to a respective first one of the advertiser without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers.

FIG. 6 shows a method 600 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation. The method 600 may be employed in performing the method 400 (FIG. 4).

At 602, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace computer system implementing a budget capping that prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once an advertiser specified budget for a defined campaign is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the defined campaign.

FIG. 7 shows a method 700 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation. The method 700 may be employed in performing the method 400 (FIG. 4).

At 702, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace computer system implements a smoothing that prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once an advertiser specified maximum concentration for a defined campaign is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the defined campaign.

FIG. 8 shows a method 800 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation. The method 800 may be employed in performing the method 400 (FIG. 4).

At 802, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace computer system implements a daily close of all advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to a given mediacast day, requests for advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to the given mediacast day, and acceptances of requests for advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to the given mediacast day.

FIG. 9 shows a method 900 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system, according to one illustrated implementation. The method 900 may be employed in performing the method 400 (FIG. 4).

At 902, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace computer system updates the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities from time-to-time to reflect advertisement placement opportunities no longer available and new advertisement placement opportunities that are available.

FIG. 10 shows a method 1000 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts (e.g., broadcasts, Webcasts). At 1002, at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may store in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts via mediacast channels. For each mediacast channel of each of the mediacast content providers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities may specify one of a plurality of periods of time which in aggregate cover a mediacast day of the mediacast channel. Each of the advertisement placement opportunities may include a plurality of slots in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity. In some instances, at least some of the plurality of slots have a duration shorter than the specified period of time of the respective advertising placement opportunity.

At 1002, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface.

At 1004, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may receive, via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers. Each request may include a request for at least one undisclosed slot in one of the advertisement placement opportunities.

FIG. 11 shows a method 1100 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts (e.g., broadcasts, Webcasts). At 1102, at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may, for each mediacast channel of each mediacast content provider, partition a mediacast day into a number of advertisement inventory units. Each of the number of advertisement inventory units may correspond to a respective period of time of the mediacast day and may include a plurality of advertisement slots.

At 1104, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may store in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium the advertisement inventory units for each of the mediacast channels of the plurality of mediacast content providers.

At 1106, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface.

At 1108, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may receive, via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers. Each request may include a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units without specifying a particular slot in the one of the advertisement inventory units.

FIG. 12 shows a method 1200 of operating an advertisement marketplace computer system to automate advertisement placement in printed media (e.g., newspapers, magazines, books, signs). The method 1200 may be executed in conjunction with and by the same advertisement marketplace system which performs any of the methods discussed above.

At 1202, at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may, for each printed media channel of each printed media content provider, partition the printed media channel into a number of canonical advertisement inventory units. Each of the number of advertisement inventory units may be defined by a respective portion of the printed media channel and may include a plurality of advertisement slots. For instance, in the case of a magazine, each canonical inventory unit may define a particular section (e.g., table of contents, feature stories, letters to the editor) of the magazine and a particular publication date, and each inventory unit may include multiple advertisement slots.

At 1204, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may store in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium the advertisement inventory units for each of the printed media channels of the plurality of printed media content providers.

At 1206, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may provide access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface.

At 1208, the at least one processor of the advertisement marketplace system may receive, via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers. Each request may include a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units without specifying a particular slot in the one of the advertisement inventory units.

The above description of illustrated implementations, including what is described in the Abstract, is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the implementations to the precise forms disclosed. Although specific implementations of and examples are described herein for illustrative purposes, various equivalent modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure, as will be recognized by those skilled in the relevant art. The teachings provided herein of the various implementations can be applied to other systems, not necessarily the exemplary system generally described above.

The foregoing detailed description has set forth various implementations of the devices and/or processes via the use of block diagrams, schematics, and examples. Insofar as such block diagrams, schematics, and examples contain one or more functions and/or operations, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that each function and/or operation within such block diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. In one implementation, the present subject matter may be implemented via Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) or programmable gate arrays. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the implementations disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in standard integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more computer systems), as one or more programs running on one or more controllers (e.g., microcontrollers) as one or more programs running on one or more processors (e.g., microprocessors), as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the code for the software and or firmware would be well within the skill of one of ordinary skill in the art in light of this disclosure.

Various methods and/or algorithms have been described. Some or all of those methods and/or algorithms may omit some of the described acts or steps, include additional acts or steps, combine acts or steps, and/or may perform some acts or steps in a different order than described. Some of the method or algorithms may be implemented in software routines. Some of the software routines may be called from other software routines. Software routines may execute sequentially or concurrently, and may employ a multi-threaded approach.

In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the mechanisms taught herein are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that an illustrative implementation applies equally regardless of the particular type of signal bearing media used to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of signal bearing media include, but are not limited to, the following: recordable type media such as portable disks and memory, hard disk drives, CD/DVD ROMs, digital tape, computer memory, and other non-transitory processor-readable storage media.

The various implementations described above can be combined to provide further implementations. All of the U.S. patents, U.S. patent application publications, U.S. patent applications, foreign patents, foreign patent applications and non-patent publications referred to in this specification and/or listed in the Application Data Sheet, including but not limited to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/561,186 filed Nov. 17, 2011, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/958,143, published as Publication No. 2008-0120638, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/679,828 filed Nov. 16, 2012; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/744,136 filed Jan. 17, 2013; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/711,984 filed Dec. 12, 2012; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/956,020 filed Jul. 31, 2013; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/485,416 filed Sep. 12, 2014; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/679,755 filed Apr. 6, 2015, and U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/172,693 filed Jun. 8, 2015, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/236,350 filed Oct. 2, 2015, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/250,170 filed Nov. 3, 2015, and U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/250,165 filed Nov. 3, 2015, are incorporated herein by reference, in their entirety. Aspects of the implementations can be modified, if necessary to employ concepts of the various patents, applications and publications to provide yet further implementations.

These and other changes can be made to the implementations in light of the above-detailed description. In general, in the following claims, the terms used should not be construed to limit the claims to the specific implementations disclosed in the specification and the claims, but should be construed to include all possible implementations along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. Accordingly, the claims are not limited by the disclosure. 

1. A system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts, the system comprising: at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium that stores an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities represented in a canonical form that specifies at least a respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity during a mediacast day of the mediacast content provider; and at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium and which implements an advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers, and that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form specifies the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity by at least two of: i) a start time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, ii) an end time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, and iii) a duration of the respective advertisement placement opportunity.
 3. The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form further specifies a day of the week of the advertising placement opportunity.
 4. The system of claim 3 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form further specifies at least one of a network, a network affiliate, or a channel of the advertising placement opportunity.
 5. The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form represents the advertising placement opportunity without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity.
 6. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity.
 7. The system of claim 6 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without revealing a total number of slots available in the respective advertising placement opportunity to any of the advertisers.
 8. The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form represents the advertising placement opportunity without specification of either a specific start time or a specific end time for the advertising placement opportunity.
 9. The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface receives a plurality of requests for an advertisement placement opportunity from a corresponding plurality of advertisers, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price, wherein the advertiser-facing user interface receives the plurality of requests without exposing the bid price of each advertiser to any other of the plurality of advertisers.
 10. The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface further provides notification of an acceptance of a request for advertisement placement opportunities to a respective first one of the advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers.
 11. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements an advertiser-facing interface that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers.
 12. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface which receives a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receives an advertiser-specified budget which spans the received plurality of requests, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price and the sum of the bid prices of the plurality of requests exceeds the advertiser-specified budget, the at least one processor prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified budget for the plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests.
 13. The system of claim 12 wherein the received plurality of requests comprises requests from an advertiser for all advertisement placement opportunities which meet one or more criteria specified by the advertiser.
 14. The system of claim 12 wherein the advertiser-specified budget spans at least two media types including television, radio, or digital placement of media.
 15. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface which receives a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receives an advertiser-specified maximum concentration which spans the received plurality of requests, the at least one processor prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified maximum concentration for the received plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests.
 16. The system of claim 15 wherein the maximum concentration comprises a maximum number of acceptances with respect to at least one of a market, an affiliate, a period of time, a media outlet, a geographical area, or a group of consumers.
 17. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements a daily close of all requests for advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to a given mediacast day.
 18. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor updates the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities from time-to-time to reflect advertisement placement opportunities no longer available and new advertisement placement opportunities that are available.
 19. The system of claim 1 wherein the specified period of time for at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities comprises thirty minutes.
 20. The system of claim 1 wherein each of the advertisement placement opportunities includes a plurality of slots in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity, at least some of the plurality of slots have a duration shorter than the specified period of time of the respective advertising placement opportunity.
 21. The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface accepts requests for respective advertisement placement opportunities within 15 minutes of the respective publishing time of the advertisement placement opportunities.
 22. The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface accepts requests for respective advertisement placement opportunities within 1 minute of the respective publishing time of the advertisement placement opportunities. 23-42. (canceled)
 43. A system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts, the system comprising: at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium that stores an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, for each of the mediacast content providers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities specifies one of a plurality of periods of time which in aggregate span an entire mediacast period of time of the mediacast content provider, and each of the advertisement placement opportunities includes at least one slot in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity; and at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium and which implements an advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers, and that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.
 44. The system of claim 43 wherein the mediacast period of time comprises at least one of a mediacast day or a mediacast week.
 45. (canceled)
 46. A method to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts transmitted by a plurality of mediacast content providers through respective mediacast channels, the method comprising: for each mediacast channel of each mediacast content provider, partitioning, by at least one processor, a mediacast period of time into a number of advertisement inventory units, each of the number of advertisement inventory units comprising a respective inventory unit period of time of the mediacast period of time and comprising at least one advertisement slot; storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the advertisement inventory units for each of the mediacast channels of the plurality of mediacast content providers; providing, by the at least one processor, access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers, each request comprising a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units.
 47. A method to automate advertisement placement in printed media published by a plurality of printed media content providers through respective printed media channels, the method comprising: for each printed media channel of each printed media content provider, partitioning, by at least one processor, the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units, each of the number of advertisement inventory units comprising a respective portion of the printed media channel and comprising at least one advertisement slot; storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the advertisement inventory units for each of the printed media channels of the plurality of printed media content providers; providing, by the at least one processor, access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers, each request comprising a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units.
 48. The method of claim 47 wherein partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units comprises partitioning at least one of a newspaper, book, magazine or sign into a number of advertisement inventory units.
 49. The method of claim 47 wherein partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units comprises partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units which each correspond to a particular section of the printed media channel.
 50. The method of claim 47 wherein partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units comprises partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units based at least in part on publication date of the printed media channel. 